


this thorn tree.

by uncaringerinn



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, may contain peanuts or other tree nuts.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 13:47:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9494141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uncaringerinn/pseuds/uncaringerinn
Summary: he's both a patient boy, and a jealous man.





	

She's scrunched herself up on that armchair; legs bare and pulled up to her chest. She wears nothing but an old, over-sized henley; off-white, buttons undone. He can see the stark white of her cotton underwear peeking out from between her thighs.

A flip of a page from the book propped against her legs, her eyes flash up. The greenest thing he's ever seen, and the color manages to bring out the red-ginger of her hair, the constellations of freckles covering her cheeks.

Even from across the room, he can tell she's freezing, can see the goosebumps spread out against her uncovered flesh. Wants to feel them underneath his palms, wants to warm every inch of her skin, slow and easy. Watch her come apart after she's finally, _finally_ let him in.

His coat comes off, thrown across the bed, and the sound of his footsteps fill the room. When he stops in front of her, she only curls her fingers around the edges of her book.

Arthur kneels and she stays rigid; knees pressed together, heels at the edge of the chair. With the hazel-green of her gaze she dares him to move her. Knuckles bloodless, breathing shallow, she asks, "What do you want?"

"You know what I want, Theodora." It's a dry rasp from a parched throat. He's a man dying of thirst, has come to drink deep from the well that she guards. A mongrel with a bone; she won't give it up easy.

His hand comes up, fingers wrap around the ankle of one socked foot. She shakes her head, but a blush crawls from her chest, to her cheeks, to the tips of her ears. Her voice is gentle, soft and delicate, "You don't deserve it."

He's a patient boy, "Has anyone?"

She looks away at the same time that his blue eyes track over the worn wedding ring on her left hand. Leftover from a dead marriage, haunting them like a ghost.

Yes, he's a patient boy, but also a jealous man.

The hand around her ankle pulls deftly, and the book settled in her lap is unseated, slides to the cushion, forgotten. He hears the hitching gasp that spills from her lips and feels the strain in her muscles as she tries to pull back, the tension in her body as her knees stay firmly shoved together. All of this, but he still sees the white-cotton of her panties darken. All of this, but he smells the musky scent of her arousal like smoke from a wildfire.

His fingers sweep over shin, slide back to calf, and then stroke up to the tender skin behind her knee, "You'll let me linger," he rasps, breath brushing hotly across her thighs. Watches as the rose blush of her cheeks deepens, turns hungry.

He's come before her, spread out at her alter, asking for forgiveness that she's unwilling to give, "Arthur, please-"

He gives a coarse laugh, indelicate and rough, "I'm tired of waiting."

"I can't," she whispers. Her lashes are wet now and brown has stolen over the brilliant green of her eyes. Her voice is small, utterly heartbroken, "Haven't I already given you enough?"

His hands glide up, close around her hips to tug her forward, balanced at the edge of the chair. He brushes the hem of that too-big shirt up, past her navel, and the dull sheen of silver lines on her abdomen are an almost-illusion, like a trick of light, some more soft-pink than the pale-translucence of others. He wants to add more of those spider-web scars to the skin stretched across her belly, wants those precious marks to be another testament to everything she's given him.

Arthur traces his thumbs over those lines; a possessive sweep that leaves her shivering, "Not everything."

"You're selfish," she says, but her resolve weakens and her knees widen. Just an inch.

He takes a mile.

There's a sharp gasp as his teeth scrape against her inner thigh and he turns his face, presses his nose to the damp fabric between her legs, inhales like he can carve the memory of her scent into the bottom of his lungs, "I won't beg, Theodora."

Her hands come up to cover her face, but her knees give way; the parting of the Red Sea, the gates of heaven, unbound. She could be his angel if she wasn't shrouded in shadow, if she didn't call to the devil perched on his shoulder.

"This changes nothing," but it's a shaken thing, and even he can hear the lie that passes her lips. The last wall of her fortress, battered and war-torn, comes crumbling down.

Strong, steady fingers curl into the elastic at the swell of her hips, pulls the barrier of thin-cotton fabric away. Down thighs, over knees, past the bony joints of her ankles to be cast across the room. He'll find them later; a souvenir from the final siege in the war they've been fighting for _so long_.

He drapes her legs over his shoulders, left hand wrapping firmly around the width of her thigh, right hand drifting up to graze fingertips over the outline of her ribcage. Her breathing catches, a startling moment where the air locks in her lungs.

His tongue parts her lower lips in a single swipe, and her body seizes; legs growing taut around his ears, hips canting upwards, back arching against the rigid strength of the armchair. She makes no noise and her hands still obscure her face from his view. He'll let her hide, he has what he wants splayed out before him.

Arthur sets about his work agonizingly slow, and Theodora quickly becomes impatient. One of her hands slips down from her cheek to tangle in the chocolate brown of his hair, fisting mercilessly at the roots.

She yanks. He snarls against her, the warning sounding clear in the thick, heavy air of the room. She doesn't yield. Her fingers twist sharply, before she jerks once more.

Her onslaught only serves to further heat his blood, but it makes him move no faster. Oh, but the noise she makes when his lips finally close around her clit. Arthur's eyes cast up, because he wants to see her fall apart for him, wants to hear her voice shake as she cries out his name.

Her left hand is still covering her face; wedding ring shining against the rosy hue of her flushed skin. The sight of it makes him furious, there is no room for the dregs of her past to wash up in the fragileness between them.

Arthur pulls away from her, shifts up in a brutal twist of movement. He snatches her hand from her face, grinding the delicate bones of her wrist beneath his grip. Rage sweeps across Theodora's features, lips pulling back in a sneer. He can practically feel the caustic words burning at the tip of her tongue, but before they can fall into the open air, Arthur slides his free hand down between her still-parted legs, plunges two thick fingers into her.

It's an almost sickening amount of pride he feels as her jaw drops open, as her head tilts back and her eyes slip shut. The sigh that falls from her mouth is nearly as rich as the wetness he tasted from between her thighs.

He presses his lips to the swell of her cheek, traces the tip of his tongue over the crest of her ear just to feel the subtle grind of her hips against the strength of his hand. Her breathing falters, her nails catch on the fabric of his shirt, scrape red-hot against the skin underneath. Arthur can feel her beginning to tighten around his fingers, the roll of her hips becoming less deliberate, and more unsteady, more hungry.

He groans into the flesh of her throat, "This is the way I'll always want you," he confesses, dragging his teeth harshly against her pounding pulse, "just like this."

His words undo her. Theodora seizes against him, clenching down on his fingers, and whimpering sweetly into his ear. It is the single greatest victory he's had, wants to keep her here, in this room, so he can relive it for the years to come.

Arthur slides down to kneel between her legs once more, dragging kisses over her skin as he goes. When he catches her hazel eyes, glassy and wild, he's almost unprepared for how wrecked she looks, how completely he's destroyed her. He's hooked on the power she's given him, and now that she's allowed him to have it, he'll never be able to let her go. When he looks at her, she must know it too.

Tears drip off her lashes, fall in the space between them. Theodora reaches out, traces the tip of a single finger down that ragged scar in the center of his cheek, "I don't love you," she whispers, forewarning and drenched in sorrow. He reaches out, catches her hand in his. Her wedding band burns like a brand against his palm.

 Arthur's voice is an undertow, murmured in the trembling flesh of her thigh, "You will."

**Author's Note:**

> so, no shit, this has been sitting in my wip folder for like...six months. i've stalled a lot on this piece, for the usual shit reasons; classes, applying to grad school, work, family nonsense, and then there's the fact that this is the most descriptive thing i've ever written down on paper, even though it's still way tame when compared to the utter absolute delicious filth i've read in my short time on this earth. so like...i was way nervous to write it, and now i'm way nervous to have other people read it.
> 
> this fits in somewhere after charcoal (the reworked version that i still haven't written) and afterthought (which i will rework eventually, maybe?)   
> anywho, this title is somewhat taken from Sweet Talk by The Killers (big shocker there), and if you sorta recognized the "patient boy, jealous man" line, it's from My Blue Heaven by Taking Back Sunday. 
> 
> as always, let me know what you think, maybe?


End file.
